Training Your Capacity for Emotional Intensity

If you hold the more masculine energy in your relationship, meaning you identify with consciousness and steadiness while your partner is more energetic, and changing, you’re probably going to have some heated exchanges.

It’s just the way sexual polarity works out.

I used to think this was something you had to suffer through, but I’ve discovered that part of what being in a long term relationship is about is becoming a polished mirror to reflect back when our partner isn’t being loving or when the depth of their consciousness isn’t being fully presented or seen. You can do this without blame or judgment.

My teacher David Deida said to me once, a while ago, “Anything your partner can say to collapse you is what they will say, as long as they can collapse you.” There’s a quality of testing in intimacy, that partners partake in.

Particularly if you have a more feminine partner who wants to wake you up, they instinctively see the potential of you being absolutely free and they want to get you there. Our habitual fights and patterns of tussling with each other come about for a variety of reasons.

I’d like to unpack some of the lessons I’ve learned in my own life that have shifted this, and have led to a lot of fun along the way. I’ve been peeling back layers of closure and limitations that I didn’t even know I was offering or presenting in my intimate relationships.

How to Overcome Mismatched Desires in Intimacy

When we think about mismatched desires in intimacy, we usually jump to thinking about different desires around the frequency of sex.

But in the work I do with couples and individuals, what I find to be the deepest part of mismatch is a question around what intimacy even means.

The more emotionally responsive partner normally needs a connection with the heart that feels authentically deep and genuine. They need to feel their heart being dilated open. There are not clear objective physical steps one can take that will do this. It has to be navigated, moment to moment, within the dreamy realm of sensation and perception.

The typically more masculine partner is engaged with the flow of what they are doing in the world, the momentum of life priorities, and conceptual thinking — what’s going on in their mind. They have a ton of mental energy and psychic force that requires a jolt of overt sexual energy to distract them from their inner mental momentum.

So one partner is wanting to feel a timeless connection and sensitive penetrating consciousness in order to surrender, and the other partner may just want to physically get it on, to find relief and some sliver of freedom, then let go into the bliss of sleep.

This obviously creates a conflict.

So how do we overcome these mismatched desires?